


Aos sí

by ninayoshi



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Past Relationship(s), Torture, Unsanitary, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-01-23 02:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21312850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninayoshi/pseuds/ninayoshi
Summary: There is a man and his daughter in the woods, surrounded by seven well-trained dogs.This is a story about a story.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Better View of the Rising Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207968) by [lovetincture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture). 

“Let’s start this off with a fairytale, shall we?” The man speaks, his voice a soft lull, warming his daughter with promises of sleep and heavy quilts. The fireplace beside them crackle and sputter, as the dogs piled around them, creating a fort from fur.

“Okay, papa.”

The man settled into the settee as his daughter squeezes into the space between the arm and his thigh, and he puts a throw over their legs. There he tucks her into the crook of his arms, and sighs.

_There was once a gentleman who has all of the wealth and riches he could have. He has rich friends too- Well, friends were what they call themselves, this gentleman sees them as pests._

_For his entertainment he throws parties. Parties so grand and fancy that he could feed a hundred people, all dressed up in their fancy clothes in their fancy world._

_But fancy people have a knack of being snobbish and rude. They turn their noses on those who aren’t in their circle, gossip cruelly._

_And so the gentleman find it rude. He began to kick them out of his parties, one by one. But the more people he kicked, the more particular he is about the circle of entertainment he decided to kick, and even then he found ugliness within._

_He kicked and kicked, until there was no one left. His parties are empty, and he sat alone._

“Papa, why can’t he find new friends? Friends that will say nice things to people.”

He smiles. “He did. But he was a strange fellow.”

_The gentleman found another man. He was rude, he was prickly, but what he does and say was full of understanding. The gentleman come to see the rude man as rude just because no one understands him. But he does. He understands the rude man._

_The rude man doesn’t want to be his friend._

“Why?”

_Because you see, the rude man can see that the gentleman is a hypocrite. Someone who judges people yet doesn’t judge himself with that same attitude. We call these people, jerks._

“Jerks.” She repeats, smiling. Her blue eyes so entranced, so innocent.

_But, the rude man come to find the gentleman was genuine in becoming friends. He decided to let him be, and they enjoyed quiet parties together. They talked about very many things, subjects from all around the world, and the gentleman soon fell in love with how the rude man talks about the world._

_Like something to be ruined._

_One day, the gentleman and the rude man found a child. She is very young, like you. With blue eyes and dark hair. She was almost killed by her father, and they had decided to adopt her. The two men love her very much, like their own daughter._

_But then he had to take you away from me._

She blinks, and he laughs, shaking his head. “Sorry, darling, not you. Her.” 

_She was a beloved child that the rude man thought he could nurture, and through her he thought he could save the world, not ruin it._

_The gentleman thinks not. Because you see, the rude man had realise by now that he had hidden a secret._

“What is it?”

_He is a monster._

_He eats rude people._

_And he ate you, Abigail. Bones and all. Took you away from me._

“Papa? Don’t cry.”

He sniffs, smiling still. “No, sorry darling, I’m about to be done. I need to tell you how this story ends.”

_The gentleman was so angry, so betrayed that the rude man had tried to get him caught, that he left behind corpses of his daughter, and tried to kill the people he loved. He ran away, leaving behind his broken heart._

_But of course, the gentleman couldn’t stay away for long. The rude man was the only person who could understand and see him the way he is, and yet still accept him to some degree. Because you see, they were in love._

_Sometimes, all you could do is to love a monster._

_The last thing the rude man did was to lull the monster back to the cage, where he sits willingly._

The man sighs, now curling his daughter’s hair idly as he sees her yawn.

“Do you want to see him? The monster in the basement.”

“Yes, papa, before I sleep.”

The stairway was dark and dangerous, as the man led the way down, holding his daughter’s tiny hand in his. The door ahead is locked, barred firmly with different locks.

“Is this way you keep coming down here, papa? To feed the monster?” 

The locks come undone quickly, and from behind the door something stirs. She yelps, hiding behind his pant leg. He laughs, petting her head.

“Silly girl, he won’t hurt us.”

The door slides open, and a skeletal figure laid on his side, chained to the walls, covered with fecal matter, piss, blood, and other nondescript liquid.

The figure sat up immediately, his frail frame shaking from holding himself up.

“Will-“

“Because monsters aren’t real.”

The man croaked, crawling forward, only to be held by the chains.

“Will, who are you talking to?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you love a monster?  
Rather, how do you stop loving as a monster?  
—  
Hannibal has nothing, is nothing, without—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Hannibal Whumpfest 2019.

”Bear the weight of your sins.”

Hannibal gritted his teeth, and uttered no word, nor a single sound.

Will shifted his crossed legs, right over left, to left over right. Mundane actions to keep time, to know that this too shall pass in time. That he had not been struck with a Sisyphean task to bear this weight.

Will sat on top of him, on a chair that straps across his entire back, with his limbs chained to either end of the room, so enough weight is held together by muscles and sinews. His joints had long been taken out of their sockets, and that was the only time Will hears his scream.

That was the only time Will laughed, too.

Ah time, the concept slips away from him like reality. Sometimes he finds himself within his memory palace, with nothing but strained resolve as he flogs himself. A penance paid with blood, in exchange for forgiveness. But this God is chaos, He does not know truly the meaning of forgiveness. Of sensible violence. Cruelty, though, He understands. It is all their relationship is based upon.

So Hannibal presents with his entire body, and hoped by some infinitesimal chance that Will understands sacrifice through his body. That perhaps in this world, Will finds solace in the bits and pieces of himself that has been shed for him to satiate his anger. He can’t give his soul. His God won’t take what he thinks is worthless.

The pain melds into his senses like a theremin’s chord. Discordant, but the impossible notes between trembling fingers shifts into one grand melody. He thinks he smells blood. But there’s also piss, shit, and things that Will perfumes him with.

In reality, Hannibal holds himself together as Will sat atop of him, not moving at all.

Will mutters things to himself, in that sweet voice he hears on occasion when he talks to ‘his daughter’. He wonders if he ever talks normally again. 

Today is a merciful day, he hears Will say, as he hopped off of Hannibal while miming the action of holding a young child’s hand in his. In the hand that he holds his imaginary daughter with, Will touches Hannibal’s face with such terrible adoration.

This is not mercy.

The cruelest torture, Hannibal finds out soon after his makeshift incarceration, was not the bodily harm placed upon him by Will.

It is the moment of clarity where he sees Will as he could have been. A brilliant mind in a precarious balancing act of empathy and apathy, that glimpse of hope that one day his shackles will be undone so they can be reunited.

The cruelest joke that God above had played on him was to give him a stranger he still loved.

”See, Abigail?” Will whispered, the cadence dredging up heavy memories. It claws up his throat, tearing a wounded sound from him. Hannibal hangs his head, unwilling to let him see the tears that follow.

Will drops his hand.

”Come, we need to feed our monster.”

His final mercy, at least, was disillusioned ignorance.


End file.
